


I'd Pay to See You Frown

by Fudgyokra



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), CW for brief discussions of racism, Damian hates his shoes, Duke saves Damian from a nosy journalist, Fluff and Humor, Jason is drunk-texting ex-boyfriends, M/M, Pre-Slash, background TimCass, mentioned DickKori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 12:17:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17528561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: They needed a Wayne at the Wayne Gala, and with his father away on business in Siberia, that left Damian to attend in his place. He wasn’t pleased with the development.





	I'd Pay to See You Frown

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a quick little thing and then ended up sitting in my docs for a few months before I decided I was done with it, so...here it is! Lol.
> 
> Title from Panic at the Disco's "Ballad of Mona Lisa."

If one more person asked him to smile tonight, Damian was going to lose it.

His life was nightmarish enough without the addition of a tailored Armani suit and a sparkling silver Rolex that was somehow even more pretentious, and because he was dressed to impress, or so he’d been told, people approached him expecting to be dazzled. It wasn’t as if he were some trained chimp, he thought with a bitterness that must have showed on his face, because, for the tenth time since he’d arrived, one of the many drunken bachelorettes of the night laughed, laid a too-friendly hand on his forearm, and told him with candor he couldn’t bring himself to appreciate that he’d be so _handsome_ if he only _smiled._ Perhaps, if he stopped scowling, he’d be just as handsome as his _father._

Well, Damian was not his father. He didn’t want to be here, and he didn’t want to play games for the paparazzi or for the hoard of socialites teeming around in the marble-floored foyer of Gotham’s western-most concert hall. His attendance hadn’t been of his own volition, obviously. They needed a _Wayne_ at the Wayne Gala, and with his father away on business in Siberia, probably getting into who-knows-what kind of trouble, that left Damian to attend in his place. He wasn’t pleased with the development.

He grimaced at the memory from two mornings ago, when Bruce had cornered him during his daily yoga to relay the news. “You’re kidding,” Damian had said, mid-bakasana, with a look he hoped conveyed his displeasure, provided his tone could not.

Bruce, unconcerned, had merely taken a sip of his coffee and mandated that he shine his best dress shoes for the occasion. The authoritativeness left no room for argument, which was cause enough for Damian’s irritation; he wasn’t a child anymore, even if he was only a few short months into his eighteenth year, so he didn’t much appreciate being bossed around. Of course, he never had, but that was a bit beside the point.

Still, he had remained genteel thus far, and if he could survive the next hour of boozy introductions and unbecomingly flirtatious advances from women old enough to be his mother (older, even), then the official entertainment would begin, and he’d be blessedly free. Currently, he was standing idly around, swirling fruit punch in his glass like he was a stag at prom at not the soon-to-be owner of a highly successful business.

“Let me guess, cabernet franc?” a familiar voice joked.

Damian sighed and tilted his face in Duke’s direction. The man was smiling that dazzling, room-stopping smile of his and brandishing a glass of his own, more than likely actual alcohol. Irately, he muttered, “You know fully well I am not of age to order a drink.”

Being an heir to a fortune only meant so much, apparently. Sure, if he bothered to charm and flirt his way into it, he’d probably be three glasses deep of the finest wine money could buy, but he wasn’t willing to stoop that low quite yet. He’d come pretty close a couple of times in the evening, though.

“Chill out, man. It was only a joke,” Duke said without fire. His smile remained fully intact, growing even wider as he paused to wave at a passing trio of women, all of whom giggled when they waved back. Damian physically couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling. When he was addressed again, it was with the words, “Why don’t you give those loafers a break and come sit with us?”

At his suggestion, Damian’s gaze followed the point of his outstretched hand to a cluster of ottomans gathered around a low table, at which sat Tim, Cass, and Jason. Though he was surprised to see Jason, he chalked his willingness to attend up to “free drinks” and turned his attention back to Duke, his mouth a tight line. “These are Mezlan wingtips, not loafers,” he corrected. In his mode of speaking, that meant something along the lines of, “I’m offended you would even ask me to join those imbeciles, so I won’t bother acknowledging your request,” but he didn’t suppose that was polite to say of your family when you were at a glamorous charity event sponsored by said family.

Out of all the things he expected, he didn’t expect Duke to pull a face like something smelled and say, “Oof, your dad made you wear those, huh?”

“How did you guess?” Though the question sounded wholly disinterested, Duke’s returning smile indicated that he knew it was very much the opposite, and for reasons unbeknownst to him, Damian felt a rush of warmth at the thought he was so well known by someone other than Grayson.

“Well,” he said, “you’re the last person on god’s green earth I’d ever expect to wear gator skin.”

“They’re atrocious,” Damian agreed.

“I’m not a fan either,” Duke said, and tipped his glass back to take a swig. “Rich people will wear any damn animal poor people are willing to skin for cash.” He shook his head, clicked his tongue. “Awful.”

Despite himself, Damian felt an emotion other than annoyance for the first time during this entire ordeal. His mistake was smiling after the fact, because it attracted the obnoxious flash of a camera, followed by a grinning journalist in his face, fingering the camera that hung around her neck with the hand she wasn’t currently using to tipsily pat at Damian’s arm. “‘Wayne Tech Heir Caught Smiling,’” she said with a laugh. “Now there’s a million-dollar headline to go with a million-dollar shot.”

He knew she didn’t mean any harm, but he’d had enough of the stupid jokes about his smile over an hour ago. Before he could say anything, however, Duke shook his head and put his hand out to remove hers from Damian’s sleeve. “Ma’am, do you mind if I stole you for a drink? Our pal here is kind of busy.”

“Oh, I would _love_ a drink,” the woman said, instantly hooking her arm around Duke’s. Damian watched as he threw a wink back his way before carting her off to the bar, effectively disabling his ticking timebomb of anger before it could blow.

Stunned, he simply blinked and looked over his shoulder at the others, who were all grinning in his direction and tittering to each other like they’d just witnessed something particularly funny. When he approached to join them, it was with a mock sigh of reluctance. Truthfully, anything was better than conversing with the rest of the airheads floating around the foyer.

“At least _pretend_ to like us,” Jason teased. He snorted when he laughed, which meant he was already drunk, but Tim and Cass seemed to enjoy the way he smacked a hand over his mouth and nose in embarrassment, so Damian forwent a response to the jab in favor of sliding into the circle of ottomans and taking a seat. “That wasn’t funny, guys,” he could hear Jason saying, but he was preoccupied watching Duke and the journalist chat at the bar.

He’d spent the entire night in forced chivalry and barely-concealed malcontent, but something had _changed_ suddenly, and it was like the annoyance he could muster for the group’s antics was suddenly only minimal. He wasn’t sure whether it was Tim or Cass who noticed first, but he caught the glaringly obvious way they looked at each other, that knowing twinkle in their eyes practically blinding him when they turned it on him in unison.

“What?” he dared to ask, even went so far as to lift a brow, as if proving his earnestness. _Crap._ That was enough of a hint, not only to them but to himself, that whatever was amiss was written neatly in the way he was staring out across the room, not with the focused eye he usually employed, but the thousand-yard stare of someone with a—no. He couldn’t even think the word without outwardly cringing, much less stomach the idea of the two of them knowing, and that was to say little of _how_ they knew.

As if reading his mind, Tim pursed his lips and slowly, meaningfully, covered Cass’s hand with his own. Damian watched with rapt attention, like if he didn’t, then the image of her palm turning up, her dainty fingers interlacing with his, would simply disappear like a mirage. He blinked so many times without bothering to look back at their faces that Cass giggled, something that he was sure made color flood to his face just as handily as the realization of what they were conveying to him had. He prayed he didn’t look like a gaping fish, but the fact that the snap of his lips shutting made an audible sound probably meant it was a pipe dream.

“Surely you’re not implying…” he began a little dizzily. For once, he wasn’t sure how to finish a thought. He didn’t know if he should ask about their relationship, or about what that meant they were suggesting to him about his own far-away expression.

“I’m just saying,” Tim replied, although he hadn’t said anything at all. Damian thought it may have been intended as a figure of speech—something meant to draw his attention to the thought he was currently refusing to let blossom in his brain.

But, then, Cassandra finished the thought handily for him: “We know that look.”

“You two are disgustingly adorable.” Jason, who had no doubt been processing these proceedings in half-time, snorted and leaned backward in his seat. He’d clearly been expecting a back to catch his weight when there was none, leaving him floundering for a moment while he relocated his center of gravity.

Tim was all but cackling at the predicament, and Damian felt the soft smile Cass offered him reflect on his own face. Her other hand, the one not wrapped in Tim’s, settled on his arm and squeezed just hard enough to alert him to Duke’s approach. Then, it was time to panic.

Damian didn’t know what to do about a—a _crush,_ he thought, delegating the resulting cringe to his internal processes this time so it didn’t show on his face. He’d only ever had one, and that was when he and his best friend Jon were thirteen and ten, respectively, neither of them having the faintest clue about how to deal with it except to kiss, and he didn’t suppose jumping the gun and trying that right there in the middle of the gala would do anybody any good.

“Hey,” said a voice that had no business being so smooth and calm in the wake of Damian’s emotional tempest, “I brought you a real drink. You looked like you could use it.”

When he looked up, somewhat off-kilter, he was surprised to find that he was being handed a flute of champagne, obvious enough from its bubbles and amber color before he ever took it and caught of whiff of it. It smelled like it cost a great deal of money.

“Sit,” Damian demanded, unsure of how to proceed other than with what he’d meant to be a friendly invitation. Since he wasn’t particularly skilled at those, the way Duke snorted and mock-saluted him before obeying did not faze him at all. The room-brightening smile was still firmly planted, regardless, and Damian tried to remember if he’d ever met someone who smiled so much, apart from Jon. Maybe Dick, who had been suspiciously M.I.A. all evening for reasons he guessed had a lot to do with one Kori Anders. Normally, he’d be annoyed by the absence of who was arguably his favorite person in the family, but he realized he was less bothered about it than he might have been any other time.

“Elitists in this city never cease to amaze me,” Duke said conversationally, just before clinking his glass to Damian’s flute and gulping down his wine as if his life depended on it.

“You just now figuring that one out?” Jason asked with a snort. He didn’t even look up from his phone, where he was presumably texting either his current or his ex-boyfriend; which one typically depended on his level of drunkenness, leading Damian to assume it was the latter.

Duke shook his head to the negative, not that Jason could see. “That woman talked my ear off for about ten whole minutes of nonsense that eventually came down to, ‘it warms my heart that Bruce adopted you even though you’re colored.’”

Cass cringed, leaning forward to pat his knee sympathetically right as Jason hissed through his teeth in agreement to the offense.

Tim furrowed his brows. “Jesus. She didn’t really _say_ that, did she?”

“She did,” Duke replied.

“Jesus,” Tim repeated.

Jason finally looked up from his screen to offer a one-shouldered shrug. “She probably just meant she thinks it’s good B doesn’t have the ‘my adopted kids have to be white like me’ complex.”

“Oh, she definitely did. But that doesn’t really make it any better.”

Tim snorted. “To say little of Dick.”

“He ‘passes,’” Duke joked with a snort of equal caliber.

“Yeah, and I pass as a straight guy, but people still find their reasons to hate,” Jason replied with a wicked sort of grin. They all shared a laugh at that, though Damian felt a world away from the hilarity of the situation. He knew from personal experience that the only thing stopping him from being treated the same way, at least to his face, was the biological component linking him to Bruce, and he failed to see the humor in it. Then again, he was notoriously unapologetic and unafraid, so hiding his heritage or sexuality never occurred to him, not in the faintest, so he had no reason to find solace in a coping mechanism like that of his family members.

“I like to think I do, but I dunno, man.” Duke took another swig of wine, and in the silence of the admittance, added a confused, “What? Did you guys not… _know_ that?”

They all shook their heads except Damian, and Duke bumped his shoulder with his own in a gesture of fondness that sent skitters of warmth radiating from the point of contact. “What about you, detective? Surely I wasn’t a complete puzzle.”

With a flush he (erroneously but willfully) blamed on his meager couple sips of champagne, he replied, “I had my suspicions.”

Jason laughed, and even though Damian sent him his sharpest glare of warning, the man still announced, loudly and obnoxiously, “More like you had your _hopes_.”

Tim burst out laughing as well, but at least Cass had the decency to offer him a small frown and a pat not unlike the one she bestowed upon Duke earlier.

His face reddened further, and though he hated himself for it, his voice came out the slightest bit high-pitched in his embarrassment. “Todd, I will have you know—”

The assertion didn’t have time to flower before Duke’s arm slid around his waist and pulled him toward the edge of the ottoman, close enough to his body that Damian swore he felt a rush of heat emanating from him. It could have just as easily been from somewhere inside himself, but he didn’t want to dwell on such a thought, especially not when Duke looked at him with sparkling eyes and offered a distinctively suggestive, “Is that so?”

Not even Jason’s hooting could stop Damian from snapping back a mortified, “You’re touching me.”

This time, when Tim and Jason howled, Cass betrayed him by covering her own blossoming snorts with her hand. Duke, for his part, removed his arm and held his hands aloft, fingers fanned away from his glass’s stem with genuine remorse for the touch. Still, he smiled, and that too was so genuine Damian found he couldn’t prevent a truthful, “It’s all right,” from tumbling out like a confession.

He wasn’t sure if it was good luck or bad that that’s what finally shut everyone up. Without making eye contact, he stood and offered an admittedly stiff hand to Duke, whose apologetic face lit up like a light and made something flip in Damian’s chest. “Come on,” he all but demanded, still perfectly cherry-red up to his ears in the attentive gazes of his gawking family members. “The show is about to begin,” he added, as if the clarification was needed for any reason other than his stewing humiliation.

The instant Duke’s hand slipped into Damian’s and the rest of his body rose gingerly to stand beside him, Damian decided that being forced to attend this horrid gala wasn’t so bad, if only for getting him this. Whatever _this_ was—or would be.


End file.
